


A Constant State Of...

by candlemoth



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, Eventual Romance, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Han Jisung | Han-centric, How Do I Tag, I Tried, I never write fluff, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Inspired by Music, Late Night Conversations, Lee Minho | Lee Know Is Bad at Feelings, Lee Minho | Lee Know-centric, Light Angst, M/M, Mentioned Hwang Hyunjin, Mentioned Seo Changbin, Open to Interpretation, Poetic, References to Depression, Songfic, but inspired by multiple songs tho, but whats new?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:22:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22549249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candlemoth/pseuds/candlemoth
Summary: Jisung decides he wants this person to be in his life. He wants this boy with smudged eyeshadow and sticky thighs to have a role in his desperately lonely life, and he decides he wants to talk about everything and nothing with him.He puts his half empty solo-cup on concrete ground and lets the boy drag him back into the suffocating air he just came out of.
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han & Lee Minho | Lee Know, Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 14
Kudos: 59





	1. Cough Syrup and Vicodin

There’s something about the flashing colors and the bass that makes his entire skeleton feel like it’s about to jump out of his skin that gives Jisung the chills. A rush of euphoria, almost. 

And that’s where they meet. 

He’s out on the balcony to get a fresh breath of air when he sees dark eyes looking at him from underneath a black hoodie, from the corner of his eye. The colorful light from inside makes the boy’s cat-like eyes shine in all the colors of the rainbow, and Jisung finds himself almost getting lost in them. Not quite. 

He puts the half-empty solo cup in his hand on the floor and looks at the boy full on this time, drinking in the dark eyeshadow the boy has on, and everything about the boy seems black and white from head to toe. He feels oddly out of place with his bright orange hair and his bare face next to the stranger. Needless to say, this boy intrigues him, and he wishes he was good at small talk. 

“I’ve always wanted a Saint Bernard.” Smokey Eyes says. 

“Like… a dog?” Jisung replies, slightly caught off guard. “You don’t seem like the type of person to like dogs.” He continues.

“You think so?” he asks, giving Jisung a small smile. 

“I’m not sure.” 

The boy grabs Jisung’s arm and pulls him back inside the crowded house, the smile never leaving his face. 

-

Jisung wakes up next to the smokey-eyed boy the next morning. On a couch, in the same house they partied in the night before, his house, Jisung guesses, if the boy let him stay overnight. His limbs are sore, and the light coming from one of the windows makes it feel like his head is going to crack open. He looks at the boy next to him, his makeup smudged. Jisung thinks he almost looks like a raccoon instead of a cat now, as he tries to untangle himself from the boy’s legs, doing his best not to wake him up.

It takes a bit of sitting on the cold hardwood floor before he convinces himself to get up and actually move. Jisung sighs as he lifts himself up with one arm, when he hears movement from the couch he was just on. He decides not to look at the boy. 

“My name is Minho, for the record.” Smokey Eyes, Minho, says, his voice scratchy, yet smooth at the same time. 

“Jisung,” He replies, not having the energy to say anything more at the moment. 

“I like that,” Minho states, closing his eyes. “Jisung. It’s a nice name.”

“Thank you, I got it for my birthday.” Minho breaks out into laughter at his words. Jisung thinks he wants to hear him laugh for the rest of his life. 

“How can you even find the energy to joke right now?” Minho says in between snorts. Jisung smiles. 

“It’s one of my many skills.” He adds, pulling on the sleeves of his sweater. “Get up, let me get you some breakfast.” 

Minho doesn’t decline.

-

Jisung discovers that they fall into conversation easily when they’re sitting on top of the roof of Minho’s house one night, cups of coffee with them.

“I think some people want to be your friend just so they can have someone to depend on and some people just want to be free, the outsiders that don’t have anyone dragging them down, you know?” Minho looks up at the night sky. 

“I might be somewhere in between.” Jisung responds. He watches from the corner of his eye as Minho turns his head to look at him. “No way, dude.” He pauses. ”You’re too introverted to want friends.” He adds. 

Jisung sighs, the cold air fogging up his breath. “You’re right, there's nothing worse than making friends.” 

“Second that,” Minho says, taking a sip of his coffee. “We shouldn’t be drinking this, it’s like… three in the morning.” Jisung says, Minho smiles again. This time, it makes Jisung’s insides flutter. He glances at Minho’s lips, and asks, “Do you think we’re alone?”

“What like… right now? I’d say we are.” Minho replies. “No, I mean…. alone in the universe?” he continues.

“You feel that way?” Minho asks back with a quirk of his eyebrow. 

“Don’t you feel a little… I don’t know, smallish?” 

“Smallish? I don’t know.” 

-

“This is not what all my idols told me college would be like.” Minho groans. Jisung looks up from his computer to see Minho banging his head on the table lightly. It makes him snicker. 

“Yeah, well, you have to deal with it Minho,” he says, looking back at the Word Document in front of him. “And besides, don’t you like writing about stargazing or whatever?”

“It’s astronomy, dumbass.” Minho says, throwing a wadded up napkin at Jisung’s head. “Well, at least I don’t have to write about why Picasso was a terrible artist.” He continues. Jisung gasps, a hand flying up to his mouth in false shock. “How dare you!” 

Minho laughs. Jisung thinks he might be falling in love.

-

They are laying down in Minho’s garden when Minho suddenly asks, “Do you think I’d go to heaven if I died?”. It catches Jisung off guard, morbidity always does. “Of course I do.” Jisung says, voice low, eyes closed. They stay silent for some time.  
“When I was little, I hung pictures of patron saints up on my bedroom walls.” Jisung says to break the silence. He hears Minho snort. “For the aesthetic?” He asks.

“Because I thought they were both holy and free. I wanted to be a good person.” Jisung replies. A little frown on his face from the memory. “I don’t know if you would call it religious…” He continues. “I felt like I was just… satanic and chained up, I felt like a terrible person.” Minho doesn’t reply.

Jisung opens his eyes to look at Minho, to find him staring at him. “I don’t think you’re a terrible person.” He says. Jisung doesn’t know if he’s telling the truth, but he lets himself believe Minho’s words.

Minho changes the subject. “Don’t you think it’s funny how the thing we leave behind is the sky? Like… when we die, it’s the only thing everyone you know would have seen too.” 

“Sometimes you make no sense.” Jisung replies. 

“I know. Sometimes you don’t make sense either.” 

-

Jisung takes Minho to a cheap chinese food restaurant one night. They settle into a booth and order. It takes 20 minutes to arrive. He knows it takes that long, because he’s too nervous to hold a proper conversation. 

Minho is taking a bite of his Kung Pao chicken when Jisung blurts out, “I think I love you.” It makes Minho choke on the food, and laugh, and Jisung is both scared because the boy he loves is literally choking to death in front of him and relieved because Minho is caught in between hiccups of laughter at the same time. 

“Is this a confession?” Minho says in between another set of coughs. 

“Do you want it to be?” Jisung asks, fiddling with his hands on the table. 

Minho puts his hand on top of Jisung’s shaking ones. Jisung takes it as a yes, both to his question, and to his confession. 

He smiles nervously. 

He wishes his smiles were as effortless as Minho’s.

-

Jisung decides on the eve of their sixth month anniversary, that he is in love. Well, in love as in, I can’t get you out of my head, in love. In love as in, I considered stepping in front of a moving car yesterday just so you would look at me, in love. In love as in, I will never love anyone like I love you, in love. 

He thinks it might be unhealthy, considering the butterflies he feels in his stomach every time he looks at the boy’s feline features, and all the endless nights he spends thinking of him that leave the undersides of his eyes darker than the shade of obsidian, and the thoughts that go through his mind as the feeling drips down his consciousness.

He brushes it off. 

-

They’re laying on the couch with the lights off, watching Pulp Fiction for the nth time that week on Jisung’s shitty DLP type television, when Minho starts speaking over the sound of the gruesome conversation the characters are having. “Do you think you’d see me differently if you knew I meant every word I said?” 

It catches Jisung off guard. Almost everything Minho does catches Jisung off guard. He goes to open his mouth when Minho cuts him off, looking up at him with lazy eyes. “You'd probably think I'm an evil, broken person…” He huffs out a breath, “…And you would be right. I wouldn’t blame you.” A little chuckle.

“Nothing would change the way I see you, Minho.”

“What if I told you, I can go three months or more without ever being sure of anything I say or do?” Minho’s eyes reflect the screen of the discolored TV.

“Or what if I told you I can transcend my existence with thoughts and words… and when I say transcend, I mean demean...?”

Jisung shakes his head, heaving out a long sigh. “I love you the way you love the stars. I love you the way you love going out late at night and getting lost in the darkness. I love you the way you love your black coffee, I love you the way you love Saint Bernard dogs. I love you. I love you. I love you, Lee Minho.” He says. 

He can feel Minho’s tears drip onto his faded shirt, leaving dark patches where they soak into the cotton material. 

He almost misses the way Minho mouths an ‘I love you too,’ back to him.

-

Minho sometimes talks to Jisung about dreams he has. About how there were nights where he is circling the block around Union Central Station, or how he sees the same car every night in a different state of ruin. He talks about how there’s blood on the windshield, or how bullet holes litter the windows, and there are plotholes in all his stories. 

Minho just shrugs when he mentions the flawed logic behind each dream, saying, “It’s a dream, there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s meant to be absurd.”

“I don’t dream.” Jisung says one rainy afternoon where they’re stuck in Jisung’s run-down apartment. 

“No way,” Minho says, taking a sip of coffee from a stained cup. “Isn’t that impossible?” He continues. 

“Is it?” 

“Maybe you just don’t remember them, Sungie.” 

“I don’t know. Maybe.” It’s Jisung’s turn to shrug now. 

-

Jisung dreams that night. He doesn’t know if he flails around like a fish out of the water, or if he screams, or if he stays still, but he dreams. 

A short dream, but he does. 

The two of them are sitting on pavement, and it’s dark. Not dark like the dark of the night, where the stars are visible and distant street lights give the atmoshpere a warm glow. It’s dark as in there is an absolute absence of light. All he can see is Minho’s face and his own shaking hands, and that is, barely. 

“Well, see you around.” Minho smiles, even in his dreams, or is this a nightmare? He doesn’t know, but again, Minho smiles, with a voice so soft it barely disturbs the peace of the pitch black around them.

“Yeah.” Jisung says, with a sinking feeling in his chest. He watches as Minho gets up, turns around and starts walking off into the darkness. ‘Don’t leave,’ he wants to say. ‘I need you the most, don’t leave me here. We can argue semantics over who left who first later. Just dont turn your back on me, Minho. I wouldn’t know what to do if you left, as if I knew what to do before.’ He wants to say. He doesn’t. Maybe he should run after him. He doesn’t.

Somehow it feels like their last goodbye.

He wakes up with cold sweat dripping down his forehead.

The side of his bed is empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I basically wrote this at like 3am while listening to Lincoln's A Constant State Of Ohio, (I really recommend it if you like garage-band type of stuff!!)  
> And it's really messy and it's awkward,  
> but I hope you enjoyed it! I'm sorry the plot makes absolutely no sense,,,,  
> Also! This one's a bit longer than my other writing!  
> English is not my first language! Please tell me if you see any mistakes in the formatting, any criticism is appreciated!!  
> Have a wonderful day!!!!


	2. Killing Time With A Razor Blade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Hey it's Minho, I'll call you back." The voicemail clicks. Jisung sighs.
> 
> It's been a month, and after getting no reply from the older, Jisung is starting to break. It's scary, having someone you love disappear on you so quickly.

It’s been almost a month, and Jisung still hasn’t heard from his so-called boyfriend, and of course, it worries him. He’s tried to call so many times, yet the only thing he hears back is the high pitched beep, and Minho’s raspy voice saying, “I’ll call you back.” 

It’s voicemail. He’s been sent to voicemail. 

He gives up leaving messages after Minho’s inbox fills up.

The thing is, Jisung keeps seeing Minho in his dreams, and every single time he does, he wakes up in cold sweat, tears brimming at the corners of his eyes. 

They’re not even bad dreams, he just can’t help but miss him. 

They start like this: 

They’re driving, Minho in the drivers seat, fourty miles from the Han River when the car suddenly stops. Jisung looks at him, at his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly, and Minho smiles back. 

And before Jisung can even open his mouth, Minho is out the door and standing in the middle of the road. The very, very busy road. Jisung’s heart pounds heavily in his ears. 

The next moment there’s a splatter of red on the windshield (Just like Minho’s dreams, he later thinks to himself when he’s calmed down.) and Jisung sits up in bed, awake and hyperventilating.

In all honesty, he’s a mess.

-

Jisung has been staring at his beige colored walls for the past hour, the sound of the TV breaking through the silence in the other room. He knows he should probably get up and turn it off, but he just can’t find the energy to.

He notices just how much water damage is on the old paint, and lets out a little huff of laughter. He doesn’t even know how long he’s been in bed, and he can’t even think of looking at the other side and seeing it empty.  
Everything has been the same lately, but he can’t put his finger on why.

It feels like he is living through his own personal hell. 

-

He’s sitting in the dark, TV remote in his hand and eyes glazed over when the doorbell rings. Jisung painstakingly drags himself to the door, creaking it open. He doesn’t expect the person standing right in front of him. 

It’s not Minho, but he doesn’t mind the guest. 

Jisung looks at Chan blearily, before saying, “I see you’ve dyed your hair.” To which Chan laughs easily. “And you need to dye yours back to brown soon.” He adds, before inviting himself in, carrying what Jisung guesses is junk food. 

“What?” Jisung asks.

“Your roots are showing Sungie.” Chan replies. The nickname makes Jisung flinch. “You had dinner yet?” Chan continues, placing the paper bags in his arms on Jisung’s kitchen isle.

Jisung plops down on the couch again, sighing. “No.” He says, closing his eyes. “Dude,” Chan says, and Jisung opens them back to find Chan standing right in front of him. “No offense, but you look like shit.” He sits down next to him and placing one of the brown bags next to his feet. 

“Thanks, Chan.” 

Chan looks at the TV and adds, “I got cheesecake for you.” 

Jisung can’t help but smile at how Chan tries to cheer him up. 

-

Jisung has been depending on Chan a lot. He doesn’t think Chan minds, really. It’s been a while since they spent so much time together, and he really does seem happy to spend his time with Jisung.

Jisung calls him to ask if he wants to meet up one day. They decide to meet a few meters away from a cafe they used to frequent, and Jisung is almost proud of himself because he manages to drive himself to their randevouz spot without careening into a tree as an act of impulse. 

He’s fine, yeah. Totally fine.

He parks his car a couple blocks away, deciding to walk to their meeting spot. Winter is approaching, but to Jisung, it’s still that August evening when he met Minho at that party, and it involuntarily makes him sink into his flannel as he walks. 

-

Jisung is struggling. 

Things are the way they’ve always been before he met the cat-eyed boy, yet he feels as if there’s a Minho shaped hole in his heart that he can't fill no matter what he does. 

On one hand, he wishes he could go back and refuse his offer of going back inside with him, but on the other, he doesn’t regret anything at all. Most days, he just feels empty. 

He’s sitting in front of the apartment complex he lives in, coffee in hand, when the sudden urge to scream overcomes him.

-

He finally decides to clean up his house one day. At 3am, just after another nightmare, but he decides to clean up nonetheless. 

It’s going smoothly until he stumbles upon one of Minho’s sweaters he left behind, and suddenly, it’s so hard to breathe without collapsing. 

He doesn’t even know why it’s effecting him so much. It shouldn’t, really. Jisung has always been someone who moves on fast, but for some reason, this time is different.

The sweater still smells faintly of Minho’s cologne. An ocean-y scent, mellow, but it suited Minho so much. Febreeze, they would joke. It hits him, actually hits him that he misses Minho right then and there, sitting in the middle of dirty piles of laundry. 

He can’t help but take in a shaky breath, clutching the black sweater in his arms.

-

The black and white paper printout of Saint Joseph is staring back at him as he trims the white edges with kitchen scissors and reaches for the masking tape. He sighs, knowing he’s slipping back into his old, unhealthy habits. 

He’s going downhill so fast, it feels like he’s seeing the endlessly dark sky when he looks up. Minho wouldn’t have minded the stars, he thinks, getting up to stick the photograph on the already crowded drywall.

He looks back at his “crafting station” before picking up the scissors again.

He stares at them, the shiny metal, the pointy tip, and his own reflection in it. It’s comfortably heavy in his palm, cold, but it doesn’t bother him. 

Without thinking, he rolls up his left sleeve, looking at the smooth and pale skin, and back at the scissors in his right hand. He puts the tip of the blade right where he can see blue-green veins under the almost transluscent skin. He knows the blade is sharp, and if it can glide through paper like it is nothing, then the things it could do to his body…

But he doesn’t do that. Instead, he picks up another picture from the pile he has next to him, and starts cutting the edges again.

He’s starting to think it’s not healthy to dwell on old relationships. 

-

The dreams don’t stop. 

After the whole thing with the scissors, he’s started seeing Minho bleeding from the arms in his dreams, and it really is scaring him. 

In one such dream, they’re in Minho’s apartment, and Minho is facing away from him, hunched over something. Jisung stares at his back, the slight movement of his arms, and the metal he sometimes sees when Minho moves too fast.

“What are you doing?” Jisung remembers asking.

“I’m just… killing time.” Minho says, turning to look at him, his eyes shining brightly. He doesn’t look sad, which eases Jisung’s worries slightly.

“With a razor blade?” Jisung looks down at Minho’s calloused hands, and Minho nods sheepishly. Jisung tries waking towards him, but to no avail. “You know I’m not dead right?” Minho says, turning to face him fully. His right arm looks like it’s been through the shredder, and Jisung can feel the color in his face disappear.

“I know.” Jisung says. Minho smiles.

“Good.” He says. 

Then Jisung wakes up, hating that he never gets any closure.

-

He decides to call Chan one day. It’s late, but he doesn’t bother asking if Chan is awake, because, why would he? He knows he’ll pick up.

“Yo.” Chan’s low voice is somehow refreshing to hear. “Hey.” Jisung says, hating how shaky his own voice sounds. “What were you doing?”

“Nothing much, really.” Chan says back. “You okay?” Jisung curses himself for not being able to control his tone of voice better.

“Listen, I’m worried about someone.” Chan doesn’t speak, letting him continue. “His name is Minho.” At that, Chan makes a small sound before replying, “Wait… Lee Minho? The astronomy major Lee Minho?” 

Jisung is stunned into silence for a couple of seconds, and then, “You know him?”

“He’s in Changbin’s class, I think.” He says, with a slightly amused tone. 

“Have you seen him recently?” Jisung asks, digging his edgy fingernails into his wrist.

“Nope, sorry dude.” He stops, thinking. “I don’t know why you’re worrying so much though, he’s probably fine.” The last part iritates Jisung. Fine? He hasn’t responded to him in weeks, how can Chan just brush it off like that? 

Jisung sighs. “Why do you care so much anyway?” Chan finishes. 

“He’s been gone for over a month, Chan… I’m really worried.” He says, catching the hem of his shirt in between his two fingers, a nervous habit. 

“He’ll come back.”

“You think so?” 

“I heard he does that sometimes. Dissapears and comes back.” Chan stops, breathing in. “It’s going to be fine. Don’t worry about him so much.” Jisung lets out another breath, and lets Chan change the topic.

When they hang up later that night, or early morning, he still can’t get Minho out of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, so i actually got off my ass to continue writing this because, why not? people liked it!  
> i don't like it, but i hope you will!  
> any criticism is appreciated! i love you all!  
> stay safe!!


	3. A Final Rhyming Couplet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minho is shaking when he closes the door behind him, his hands gripping the straps of his backpack. He takes a deep breath and holds it in until he can feel his lungs straining, and he looks up at the stars, whishing things were different. 
> 
> So he walks until his legs feel like jelly, until he feels far enough from that suffocating house, until he can't recognise the streets and the people.

You must understand, life is very difficult for Minho.

He’s not used to this. He’s not used to being treated like this, and it’s scary, and it’s new, and Minho is terrified. He doesn’t know what to do with the butterflies in his stomach, nor the blush on his cheeks when Jisung talks to him, or the way his heart flutters when Jisung spends the night.

Minho has always been the type to throw himself at parties. Distractions. He misses puking off of balconies, and blacking out. He misses not having to care about fucking up his liver catastrophically. He misses the zero notifications that don't appear on his lockscreen when he wakes up in an unfamiliar house after a particularly wild night. He doesn’t want people to care about him, and he almost regrets talking to the orange haired boy that night.

And Minho knows he can fuck up almost anything, so what’s one more to add to the growing list?

Jisung is so kind, and understanding, and he’s accepting, and Minho has never experienced this before. All he wants to do is run, and not come back.

So he does, like always. People are used to him doing that anyway, right? Even Hyunjin stopped calling him after he disappeared for weeks on end for the third time. Someone will tell Jisung to stop worrying, eventually.

Hopefully.

-

He wakes up in cold sweat one night, legs entangled with Jisung’s once again. They’ve gotten closer and closer, and every time they stay together the dark pit in Minho’s stomach grows.

  
  
He loves Jisung, he really does. He loves him more than anything, Jisung makes him happy, and Jisung feels safe, and warm, but Minho is cold and alone and he’s never been with anyone like this before, and the feeling is horrifying.

The overwhelming urge to flee fills his insides once more, and this time, he listens to his gut instinct, grabbing his ragged backpack and throwing necessities in there, giving one last look at Jisung’s sleeping face. His eyelashes, his little pout and his slim figure. Before he sighs, careful to close the door behind him slowly as to not wake up Jisung from his sleep.

He’s gone just like that, and he knows he’ll regret it, but he can’t help it. It’ll be fine, Jisung can handle him being gone, he’s strong.

Minho hopes Jisung doesn’t take this the wrong way. Maybe Jisung’ll convince himself Minho was a hallucination all along and he’ll move on when he’s away and he’ll go on like nothing happened.

He’ll come back eventually. This shouldn’t be that much of a problem. This is fine.

-

His inbox fills up, fast.

So maybe Jisung couldn’t handle it that well, but what’s done is done, and Minho finds himself staring at the night sky, holding back tears, and why does he have the sudden urge to scream at the Gods for making him feel this way?

  
  
Why couldn’t he just stay and go on with Jisung? Why did he have to go and ruin it for himself like he always does?

There’s a small voice at the back of his head that says _go back and apologize, you dumb fuck, apologize to Jisung for leaving. He’s not used to people like you who don’t care and do wahtever the fuck they want. What you’re doing isn’t normal, you’re being dumb. Go apologize to Jisung, you absolute dumbass, you fucking idiot, go apolo-_

Minho blocks out the rest of the thoughts.

-

It’s 4 a.m, and Minho has hitchhiked to the middle of nowhere. He’s currently looking at the light-polluted sky and the far away city line, trying to make out constellations from inside a 24/7 diner’s grimy windows, shitty pour over coffee in hand.

His hands move over the small crack at the corner of his mug as he looks down at his reflection in the watered-down coffee, and notices how tired he must seem to any on-looker.

He sighs, closing his eyes and leaning back in the squeaky leather seats, letting his head lull to side the window is one once again, when he hears movement across from him in the booth.

A boy with foreign features is staring at him with wide eyes.

Minho looks the boy up and down, at first, almost thinking he isn’t even there. He looks at his dark eyes and his freckled cheeks, his sharp jawline and his lean figure, the peak of his collarbones from the old oversized faux leather jacked the boy adorns, clearly weathered and adorned with patches stuck on with uneven stitches coming off of it in every direction, they’re of bands, some of them he recognises, some of them hecan’t even begin to imagine.

The boy has a duffel bag just like him, clearly stuffed to the point the zipper looks like it’s about to explode. The same black his jacket is.

The boy looks angelic, and Minho is almost certain he’s here to take Minho away to heaven. Or hell, maybe? He can’t bring himself to care either way.

He opens his mouth to say something, but the boy cuts him off before he can make any noise.

“Hey.” He says in havily accented Korean. ”Hi?” Minho replies. It sounds more like a question. 

“My name’s Felix. What’s yours?” The foreigner- Felix, apparently, says, prompting Minho to give him an answer. “I’m Minho.” He half-whispers. He cringes at how defeated his voice sounds coming out of his mouth.

“Are you okay? You seem… down. Upset. I don’t know how to describe it. You’re missing something.” The boy says. “I’m just peachy, Felix, thank you for asking.” He puts on his best ‘I’m fine’ face, smiling slightly, his grip on the cheap porcelain mug in his hands tightening.

“You don’t believe that,” Felix continues, head tilted to rest on his hand, a small quirk to the side of his lips., “I can tell something is bothering you. You’re not that good at hiding it. Do you want to talk about it?”

Minho gulps, stuttering over his words. “Huh? I’m.. uh.. I’m fine?” He says, surprised. How has this scrawny boy read right through him in a matter of seconds?

“You can tell me, you know. It’s unlikely that we’ll see eachother again anyway.”

“Are you sure?” Minho lowers his voice, like it’ll make a difference.

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

Minho sighs like he hasn’t gotten air in his lungs in the last century. “I love this boy.”

Felix smiles, leaning in to listen more intently.

-

“You should at least speak to him.” Felix says, digging his hands into his pockets to sheild from the chill of the early morning.

Minho nods. _I know. I’m just scared._ It’s unsaid but Felix gets it anyway. “Even if you don’t go back to wherever your loverboy is, at least call him. It’ll be easier than seeing him face to face.”

“I will.”

They split off after that, bidding eachother goodbye.

“Stay safe.” Felix says as he boards his bus, and Minho nods and waves him off.

-

_Felix was right_ , Minho thinks. He was acting dumb and rash, and now he regrets it for breaking Jisung’s heart. Which he knew would happen anyway, but it doesn't hurt any less.

He’s currently staring at himself in a grimy gas station bathroom, watching his face contort into shapes he doesn't recognise.

He leans down to splash cold water onto his face, and stays there for another five to ten minutes before someone else enters the bathroom.

His hands are burning as he tries to make sense of where he is, and how he can get back to his apartment.

-

He gets that existential dread stirring in the pit of his stomach as he finally starts recognising he streets he walks through, hoping he doesn’t see people who know him.

Minho always hates this part of coming back home. People who don’t know him that well always ask where he was, and he has to answer them in hushed, rapid, polite words when all he wants to do is go home and sleep for at least ten years.

He walks through back alleys, not really caring about being stabbed, or robbed. Who would want to rob someone like him anyway? Greasy hair and dark cicrles under his eyes, he almost looks like he belongs next to a trash can with a cup in his hand, asking passerbys for spare change.

He makes his way to his apartment, hoping Jisung isn’t in there, and from the looks of it he’s safe, from what he can see of the inside of his messy apartment its empty, so he digs through his pockets for his keys.

Minho gulps as he enters, kicking off his shoes and dropping his backpack uncaringly next to the door.

He sends a ‘I’m back.’ to Hyunjin before he makes his way to his bedroom, not bothering to open any of the lights. His phone buzzes with a ‘Welcome back :) missed you, tell me when you want to meet up again’. He smiles down at the text, Hyunjin never pushes him to do anything, he appreciates it deeply. He tosses his phone on the bedside table, sighing contently when he doesn't hear a crack, or the sign of something shattering, and throws himself onto his bed.

He kicks off his pants and melts into the mess of pillows and the comforter. The sheets still smell like Jisung. All apple scented body wash and home.

Home. A funny word, really, one he only actually started using after he met Jisung. 

He's home.

He smiles as his exhaustion finally catches up to him and he gives into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry this was so late lol i literally didnt plan anything past the first chapter  
> i hope you enjoy it nonetheless!


End file.
